Why it was not all quiet on the London front

Zeppelin Nights: London in the First World War by Jerry White (Bodley Head, £25)

With most Great War centenary books concentrating on the fighting, particularly the costly drawn-out struggle on the Western Front, it is a relief to find one that chronicles the experience back home in London where war “utterly dominated the city’s life” and the consequences are still felt today.

Why so? Because, explains Jerry White, the capital “occupied a far more dominating place in both nation and empire in 1914” than it would even 25 years later. It controlled “almost every theatre of operations”, manufactured most of the nation’s munitions, and through it passed almost every British soldier, as well as many from the dominions and the United States. Moreover, it was London “that epitomised the wholehearted commitment… of a nation under nerve-breaking strain”.

Before the war, London was the greatest city in the world — twice the size of Berlin — with a huge proportion of immigrants (including 30,000 Germans, many of whom were waiters, barbers and bakers). Yet its greatest division was between rich and poor, with a third of the population of inner London living below the poverty line thanks to low wages and intermittent employment. By 1918 this figure had fallen to just six per cent as manual labourers’ wages doubled and the middle classes took more of the tax burden.

The immigrants were less fortunate. Barely had the war begun than German waiters were sacked. As news of enemy atrocities reached Britain, the public attacked German businesses: the torpedoing of the passenger ship Lusitania in April 1915, for example, resulted in a “frenzy” of anti-German violence in Liverpool and London. Thousands of German and Austrian men were interned or repatriated, many never to return.

For London’s women the war brought both pain and gain. Many lost loved ones in the fighting (more than 100,000 male Londoners were killed); but war also opened up for them many jobs previously the preserve of men, gave the over-thirties the vote and allowed unprecedented social and sexual freedom. It was the latter trend that caused ministers, senior churchmen and military leaders to declare a moral crusade against alcoholism (licensing hours were introduced) and licentiousness. A purity campaign by General Smith-Dorrien, for example, demanded the “suppression of everything of a suggestive or indecent nature on the stage, at the cinema, and in newspapers, postcards and novels”.

London experienced its first-ever air-raids — hence the book’s title — but their effect was more psychological than material. Total casualties from Zeppelins and bombers were just 668 killed and fewer than 2,000 wounded. While morale was unaffected, “the nerves of many were shaken, their patience wearied and their tempers frayed” by the ever-present anxiety of bombs from above.

Yet London survived it all and, in many ways, emerged a stronger, better place, with less social inequality and more economic diversity. The net losers, however, were immigrants: in 1921 London had 16 per cent fewer non-British residents than in 1911 (even the French and Italians did not return in the same pre-war numbers).

The city was also more vigilant: fearing future air-raids, precautions were made for early-warning sirens, shelters, welfare provision and evacuation that would save many lives in the Second World War; and some population and industries were moved to the provinces to make them less vulnerable. It is an extraordinary tale — peopled by characters from all walks of the capital’s life — and White, a prize-winning author of London’s late-modern history, tells it with gusto, nuance and panache. The Great War, it seems, was not all bad.